Sleep tracking accuracy ios16

I have been using Autosleep (available on the App Store) to track my sleep for several years and I've learned to trust it. Now that iOS16 has more detailed sleep tracking, I compared the Autosleep results with the Apple sleep tracking and there are big differences.


Notably, in my case (and confirmed by one other user on another forum) the Apple sleep app registers zero or very little deep sleep on most nights whereas Autosleep registers between 45 minutes and 2 hours. The average adult gets 1-2 hours of deep sleep per night so I believe that the Apple algorithm may be at fault. It is not possible to test actual deep sleep without an EEG Device but the algorithm should be a decent approximation.


I'd appreciate it if other users/biohackers could share their experiences here.

Apple Watch Series 7, watchOS 9

Posted on Sep 15, 2022 12:33 AM

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Posted on Nov 18, 2022 10:45 AM

Thanks JJ. Part of the reason for the post was the YouTube video by "The Quantified Scientist" where he analysed the Apple Watch algorithm when WatchOS 9 came out. He rated the Apple Watch as the best wearable for sleep tracking. I accept his results because he's very scientific but then I noticed that the Apple Watch was consistently reporting less deep sleep than other algorithms which on its own does not mean the algorithm is wrong. However the Apple Watch also consistently reports lower deep sleep scores than are considered normal for healthy adults and this means more investigation is needed. I belong to a biohacking group on whatsapp and I did a survey monkey survey on it - I got 15 responses. The most popular device was Oura ring followed by Whoop, Fitbit, and Garmin. All of the other devices consistently report higher deep sleep scores than the Apple Watch. In my own case when I used the Autosleep algorithm it was reporting 30-90 minutes of deep sleep. When I switched to the native Apple algorithm it is reporting as little as zero deep sleep and never more than 40 minutes (and this was after a long-haul flight when I slept for about 10 hours straight). I'm pretty healthy, I train every day, don't smoke, don't drink and have a relatively low stress life so I don't think the Apple algorithm is working for me.


34 replies

Dec 14, 2022 1:15 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

I think you are missing the point. I am not expecting exact wires to head data. Those of us that have used FB for a long time have gained a correlation confidence from what we feel from sleep and the data. The data from the Apple watch many times just doesnt match how we have experienced that sleep for whatever reason. My expectation is that the two should be somewhat in the ballpark but not dramatically different.


Maybe if we can get the algorithms of each that determine what the states are, we can understand where/why they diverge at times.

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Sleep tracking accuracy ios16

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